Show me your x-pens, and x-pen tips!

[bunnnnnnie!]

I’m going to be adding an x-pen to Zeus’s dog cage soon, and would love some design ideas.  Specifically x-pens attached to cages would be awesome, but really any x-pens I’d love to see! .

 

I bought him a rug to be the flooring for his xpen, but I find him biting at it and trying to dig it up quite often.  Is there a way to prevent him from digging it up?  I’m going to try and put the xpen walls inside the rug so he can’t reach any of the edges of the rug, but can he still dig it up and get to the ground underneath the rug somehow? 

[Elrohwen]

This is an old picture, a few days before I brought Otto home, but it shows what the cage set up is like (the only difference is that I took the shelf in the cage out, since it made them skittish). I have a 4’x2′ pet store type cage on the left, then the xpen is attached to make the total area 4’x8′. I currently have a white vinyl tablecloth thing on the ground. It’s felt backed, so it protects our floors, but is also waterproof. I plan to get an area rug soon though, so that it blends in a little more. I plan to keep the tablecloth under the rug, so if they pee or spill their water dish it won’t get through to the wood floors. I will also definitely get a rug that is large enough to have the ends outside the pen, or I know Hannah will chew. During the day, we just fold back the xpen so that the bunnies can come and go.

Here is what I have learned about this type of set up:

1. The pet store cage is excellent as a litter box and hay area. When Hannah digs at the litter box, or Otto throws hay around, it all stays within the blue cage. I’ve kept them in just an xpen (when we take them out of town) and they make a huge mess. So I’ll never get rid of my pet store cage! It’s just so easy to wipe down and the rest of the pen area stays much cleaner.

2. It’s tricky to attach the xpen to the cage. Otto is not prone to escaping, so I just clipped the xpen on, like you see in this picture. Hannah could easily fit through the gap (because you can’t attach the xpen to the blue plastic part of the cage) so we got creative. We now have NIC grids attached to the pen at a right angle, that lay flush against the cage (not sure if that makes sense). So to bust out, she needs to pull the grid out of the way (and we keep things in front of the grids to prevent this) and squeeze behind the grid then through the gap. I don’t know if that made sense, but I can take a picture later. Basically, it’s not totally escape proof (Hannah got out once even with our modifications), but that might not matter if your bunny isn’t interested in getting out.

 

 

 

[bunnnnnnie!]

Yeah luckily Zeus likes being in his cage and doesn’t really seem to attempt to get into trouble very often.  

[Monkeybun]

This is the cage/pen setup I had for my 2 when I was going to cement them.. which was a bad idea at the time :p But it will be what their permanent home will be once they are properly bonded.

[Beka27]

 

This is the current set-up… complete with new wooden shelf/hidey house at the far end.

Made from two xpens, with the back 4 panels overlapping… you can see the second, unused door tucked away in the upper left corner.

When we just had Meadow, we had NIC grids attached to her Marchioro cage…  from this (poor quality) pic, you can see how we would just fold the grids out of the way while we were home.  At night and when we were gone, she had the pen and cage. 

Honestly, the NIC grids were kind of a pain.  Zipties were always snapping and if I didn’t pay attention, they’d fall in her cage where they posed a choking risk.  And it just looked… messy.  It was a pain in the behind to still have to go in and clean out the plastic-bottom cage.  And since she is (and always was) perfectly littertrained, it didn’t serve much purpose.

 

We’ve been much happier just having the manufactured xpens on a large rug.  You can easily vacuum the space and not have to worry about additional cages.  Plus, it’s not an eyesore.

[bunnnnnnie!]

Beka; that second pic is basically my plan, only the cage is a dog crate instead.

I would do just an x-pen for him, but have discovered he will not sleep soundly (ie, totally flopped onto his back and out COLD) anywhere but his cage.  He’s 2 years old and has lived in a cage with no x-pen his whole life up to this point, and I don’t think he really got any sort of out of cage time, either.  So he’s very attached to his cage because until now that’s all he knew.   So the cage will stay, more as a security blanket for him than anything.

Did your bun attempt to dig up the rug you had down in the second pic?  That’s one thing I’m concerned about.

[LoveChaCha]

you could always lay out an old blankie

i have my xpen connected to my cage, with several blankets on the ground. she digs at that sometimes , but otherwise leaves it alone.

[Beka27]

^^^Yes. You can see the dug up spots in the pic. Bottom of the pic, right in the center… missing carpet fibers… and next to the two stacked up cardboard boxes… a couple more spots.

She always dug and pulled out the fibers, but left them, so I wasn’t overly concerned that she was eating any of it. And that is the reason why we had a rug down, to protect the real carpet underneath. I figured if she’s going to do it, better HER carpet than OURS. Also, this was within the 6 months or so after her spay, and she was still in that teenager stage… so it was perfectly normal for her to do that.

[bunnnnnnie!]

Posted By Beka27 on 06/28/2010 10:54 AM
^^^Yes. You can see the dug up spots in the pic. Bottom of the pic, right in the center… missing carpet fibers… and next to the two stacked up cardboard boxes… a couple more spots.

She always dug and pulled out the fibers, but left them, so I wasn’t overly concerned that she was eating any of it. And that is the reason why we had a rug down, to protect the real carpet underneath. I figured if she’s going to do it, better HER carpet than OURS. Also, this was within the 6 months or so after her spay, and she was still in that teenager stage… so it was perfectly normal for her to do that.

Yeah I don’t care if he digs/chews up the rug I got him, but I’m wondering if he digs at the sides of the x-pen walls, he’ll be able to pull up his rug and access the carpet underneath.

 

[Beka27]

Just make sure there’s enough carpet overlap so the edges are outside the pen. It’s a very real possibility that he might do that, but you can deal with that issue as it arises.

[bunnnnnnie!]

Posted By Beka27 on 06/28/2010 11:03 AM
Just make sure there’s enough carpet overlap so the edges are outside the pen. It’s a very real possibility that he might do that, but you can deal with that issue as it arises.

 

Ok, will do.   He never touches the carpet when he’s having out of cage time, but I still want to try and be sure.

[Moonlight_Wolf]

Here’s mine:

 

 

[Nibbles_NZ]

Baxter dug right through his carpet and tore up my carpet. Then, I got a bottom that attaches to his pen and he did the same thing with it. Some bunnies are just more destructive than others and if yours is tearing it up already, I would make sure he can’t gain access to your carpet under his rug. I put Baxters ceramic tile over where he was digging and that solved that for now. Who knows what he will do next.

[Beka27]

^^^Goodness! He’s not messing around! Has he been better since the neuter or still the same?

[Moonlight_Wolf]

Wow nibbles your bunny really is a destruct o bun. I find that the outdoor rugs found at BJ’s work great for me, the bunnies have not yet chewed them. I have found that with my buns they only seem to chew something if it is in their way (they will chew carpet if it is near a doorway they want to escape from). The best way for me to stop this is to either put cardboard or tiles there.

[bunnnnnnie!]

Well I think I’m going to add an attached floor to my x-pen once I make it (I’m going home to pick up the supplies at my parents’ house this weekend, yeah!).  I have a big square of that Coroplast from my guinea pig’s cage (may he RIP), and I think I’m going to somehow attach that to the bottom of the x-pen once it’s set up.  Then I’ll put some towels down or something over the Coroplast for traction.  Between that and the rug that will be UNDER the Coroplast, I think I’ll be safe.

[MissKris&Koji]

Wow that is a beautiful condo!

[Ashleyyy]

Here are the pens for my boys. They’re separated. Hopefully WHEN (I’m determined) I bond them, I can open it up so they can bothe share that space.

[Deleted User]

I found too that zipties can easily snap if they’re the only fasteners used on the nic pens. I use the connectors that come with the grids and they give the pen its stability.
Ashleyy, I like your setup, especially the covered litterboxes, but don’t your rabbits jump over the grids? Mine would!

[bunnnnnnie!]

Posted By Petzy on 07/09/2010 08:13 AM

I found too that zipties can easily snap if they’re the only fasteners used on the nic pens. I use the connectors that come with the grids and they give the pen its stability.
Ashleyy, I like your setup, especially the covered litterboxes, but don’t your rabbits jump over the grids? Mine would!

 

Yeah I wanted to use connectors when I made Zeus’s pen but I lost em, dangit!

[Deleted User]

lost them? oh no, you can’t lose connectors! j/k!
you can buy them on ebay.

[Ashleyyy]

Posted By Petzy on 07/09/2010 08:13 AM

I found too that zipties can easily snap if they’re the only fasteners used on the nic pens. I use the connectors that come with the grids and they give the pen its stability.
Ashleyy, I like your setup, especially the covered litterboxes, but don’t your rabbits jump over the grids? Mine would!

Yeah, they HAVE to have covered boxes, Duke especially likes backing up as far as possible and peeing off the side lol. But now he thinks it’s his diggy box lol.

I haven’t had a problem with them jumping over and they haven’t seemed interested in doing it either. Duke did figure out how to unhook the clasps so I need to find a more secure way to lock the pen lol

[LoveChaCha]

Chacha’s place

[Moonlight_Wolf]

Hey Brittany I have that same exact pen! Did you get it off Dr’s foster and smith? I use a different one now though, because it has a door.

[LoveChaCha]

I got it at Petsmart on a whim.

The xpen has a door also, lol!! When chacha is running around, I usually unclip the xpen and put it around the tv area so she can’t get behind the tv and into the wires.

[Moonlight_Wolf]

Relly oh, mine of that sort does not have a door so I got a new one with a door and use the old one to bring the bunnies outside

[Author]

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